Désirée (3 page)

On that afternoon the first person brought in was a young man who was accused of being in secret correspondence with enemies abroad. When the executioner jerked him onto the scaffold his lips were moving; I think he was praying. He knelt, and I shut my eyes; I heard the guillotine fall.

When I looked up, the executioner was holding a head in his hand. The head had a chalk-white face; the eyes were wide-open and staring at me. My heart stood still. The mouth in the chalky face was wide-open as though about to scream. There was no end to that silent scream. I could hear confused voices around me. Someone sobbed, and a woman gave a harsh giggle. Then the noises seemed to come from far away,
everything went black before my eyes, and—well, yes, I was horribly sick.

I felt better then, but people were shouting at me for being sick: I had spoiled someone's shoes. I kept my eyes shut so as not to see the bleeding head. Marie was ashamed of my behaviour, and took me out of the crowd; I heard people abusing us as we passed them. And ever since then I often can't sleep for thinking of the dead staring eyes and the silent scream.

When we got home I cried and cried. Papa put his arm around me and said, "The people of France have suffered for hundreds of years. And two flames rose from the suffering of the oppressed—the flame of Justice, and the flame of Hatred. The flame of Hatred will burn down and be extinguished in streams of blood. But the other flame, the sacred flame, little daughter, can never again be completely extinguished."

"The Rights of Man can never be annulled, can they Papa?"

"No, they can never be annulled. But they can be temporarily abrogated, openly or secretly, and trodden underfoot. But those who trample on them will incur the deepest blood-guilt in all history. And whenever and wherever in days to come men rob their brethren of their rights of Liberty and Equality, no one can say for them, 'Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,' because, little daughter after the Declaration of the Rights of Man they will know perfectly well what they are doing!"

When Papa said that, his voice was quite changed. It sounded—yes, really, it sounded just as I should expect the voice of God to sound. And the longer the time that has passed since that talk with Papa, the better I have understood what he meant. I feel very close to him tonight. I am afraid for Etienne, and a little afraid of the visit to the Town Hall. But at night we are more easily frightened than in the daytime.

If only I knew whether my life's story will be happy or sad I want ever so much to have some experience out of the
ordinary. But first I must find a husband for Julie. And, above all, Etienne must be got somehow out of prison.

Good night, Papa! You see I have begun to write down my story.

Twenty-four hours later

I am the disgrace of the family.

On top of that, so much has happened I've no idea how to get it all down. First of all—Etienne has been released, and is sitting downstairs in the dining room with Mama, Suzanne, and Julie, and he is eating away as if he'd been kept a month on bread and water. Actually he was in prison only three days!

Secondly, I have met a young man with a very interesting face and the most unpronounceable name—Boonopat, or Bona-part, or something like that. Thirdly, downstairs they're all furious, they call me a disgrace to the family, and they have packed me off to bed.

They are celebrating Etienne's return, and even though it was my idea to see Albitte, I am being scolded and scolded, and there's no one I can talk to about the future and this Citizen Bounapar. Impossible name, I'll never remember it! There's simply no one I can talk to about this new young man. But my dear good papa must have foreseen how lonely you can be if you are misunderstood by the people around you, and that is why he gave me this diary.

Today began with one row after another. First Julie told me
Mama had decided I was to wear my horrid grey frock, and that
of course
I must wear a lace fichu tight around my neck. I fought against the fichu, but Julie shrieked, "Do—you
—think we shall let you go in a low-necked dress like a—like a girl from the port? Let you go to a government office witho
ut a fichu?"

As soon as Julie had gone I quickly borrowed her little pot of rouge. For my fourteenth birthday I had got a pot of my own, but I hate it, it's such a childish pink. Julie's "Cerise" suits me much better. I dabbed it on carefully, and I though how difficult it must have been for the great ladies in Versailles who used thirteen different shades one on top of an other to get the right effect. I read about it in the newspaper in an article on the Widow Capet, our Queen who was guillotined.

"My rouge! How often must I tell you not to use my thing without first asking my permission!" said Julie crossly as she came back into the bedroom. I quickly powdered my whole face; then I smoothed my eyebrows and eyelids with a dampened forefinger—they look much nicer when they are a little shiny. Julie sat on the bed and watched me critically. I began to take the paper curlers out of my hair, but they got caught in my curls. I have such horrid, stubborn natural curls it´s a terrible business to coax them into smooth ringlets hanging down to my shoulders.

We heard Mama's voice outside. "Isn't that child ready yet Julie? We must dine now if Suzanne and Eugénie are to be at the Town Hall by two o'clock."

I tried to hurry, but that only made me clumsier than
ever
and I simply could not get my hair right.

"Julie, can't you help me?"

Honour to whom honour is due. Julie has the light touch of a fairy. She finished doing my hair in five minutes.

"In one of the papers I saw a drawing of the young Marquise de Fontenay," I said. "She wears her hair in short curls and brushes it down onto her forehead. Short hair would suit me, too."

"She just does it to remind everyone that she was only rescued from the guillotine in the nick of time! But she wouldn't have cut off her hair till she left the prison. She must have had long hair when Deputy Tallien first saw her the
re.
But," Julie added like an old maiden aunt, "I should advise you, Eugénie, not to read newspaper articles about the Fontenay."

"You needn't be so condescending and superior, Julie. I'm no longer a child, and I know quite well why Tallien got a pardon for the beautiful Fontenay, and what he was after. And so—"

"You are impossible, Eugénie! Who tells you all these things? Marie in the kitchen?

"Julie, where is that child?" Mama called. She sounded annoyed.

I pretended to be tidying my fichu, and stuffed the four handkerchiefs into my frock. Two on the right and two on the left.

"Take out those handkerchiefs at once! You can't go out like that," Julie said, but I pretended not to hear her, and impatiently pulled open one drawer after another looking for my Revolutionary cockade. Naturally I found it in the last drawer I opened, and I fastened it onto what seemed to me a very well-rounded handkerchief bosom. Then I ran downstairs to the dining room with Julie.

Mama and Suzanne had begun to eat. Suzanne, too, had put on her cockade. At the beginning of the Revolution everyone wore a cockade, but now they are worn only by Jacobins, or by people like us who are going to see someone in a government office or a deputy. Naturally when times are unsettled, for example last year when the Girondists were being persecuted, and there were wholesale arrests, no one dared to go out without the blue-white-red rosette of the Republic. At first I loved these rosettes showing the national colours of France. But now I don't like them any longer. I think it's undignified to pin one's convictions onto one's frock
or
coat lapel.

After dinner Mama got out the cut-glass decanter of port wine. Yesterday only Suzanne had a glass, but today Mama poured out two glasses and gave Suzanne one and me one.

"Drink it slowly," she told me. "Port wine is strengthening."

I took a big gulp; it tasted sticky and sweet, and all of a sudden it made me tingle. It made me very cheerful, too. I smiled at Julie, and then I saw there were tears in her eyes. She actually put her arm around my shoulder and pressed
her face against my cheek. "Eugénie," she whispered, "take care of yourself."

The wine was making me very lively. For fun I rubbed my nose against Julie's cheek and whispered,. "Perhaps you're afraid Deputy Albitte might seduce me!"

"Can't you ever be serious?" Julie was plainly shocked. "It´s not just a game going to the Town Hall, with Etienne under arrest. You know they—" she stopped short.

I took a last good gulp of port. Then I looked straight a her. "I know, Julie, I know what you mean. Usually the close relatives of arrested men are arrested, too. Naturally Suzanne and I are in danger. You and Mama are in danger, too, but you two are not going, so you may not be noticed. And . . ."

"I wish I could go with Suzanne." Her lips were trembling but she controlled herself. "But then if anything does happen Mama will need me."

"Nothing will happen to us," I said. "But if it did, I'd know you were looking after Mama, and that you'd try to get me out. We two must always stick together, mustn't we, Julie?

Suzanne did not speak on our way into the centre of the town. We walked very fast, and she did not look to right a left even when we went past the fashion shops in the rue Cannebiere. When we reached the large square in front of the Town Hall she suddenly took my arm. I tried not to see the guillotine, but the square still smelled of fresh sawdust and dried blood. We met Citizeness Renard, who has mad Mama's hats for years. The citizeness looked around timidly before nodding to us. She had evidently heard that a member of the Clary family had been arrested.

A great crowd hung about the entrance to the Town Hall. When we tried to push our way through, someone caught hold of Suzanne's arm. Poor Suzanne shook with fear an turned very pale.

"What do you want, citizeness?"

"We wish to speak to Citizen Deputy Albitte," I said quickly in a loud voice.

The man—I decided he was the porter—let go of Suzanne's arm. "Second door on the right," he said.

We pressed on through the dimly lit entrance, found the door, opened it, and were assaulted by a confused roar of voices and a horribly stuffy atmosphere.

At first we did not know what to do. So many people were sitting and standing in the narrow waiting room that one could hardly move. At the far end of the room there was another door, at which a young man in the uniform of the Jacobin Club stood guard. He wore a high collar, a huge black cocked hat with a cockade, and a silk coat with very fine lace cuffs; he had a walking stick under his arm. I thought he must be one of Albitte's secretaries, so I caught hold of Suzanne's hand and tried to push through to him. Suzanne's hand was trembling and as cold as ice, but I could feel beads of perspiration on my forehead, and I was vexed with the handkerchiefs inside my dress, for they made me hotter than ever.

"We want to see Citizen Deputy Albitte, please," Suzanne murmured when we came up to the young man.

"What?" he shouted at her.

"To see Citizen Deputy Albitte," Suzanne stammered.

"Everyone in this room wants to see him. Have you sent in your name, citizeness?"

Suzanne shook her head. "How do we do that?" I asked.

"Write your name and business on a chit," he said. "People who can't write get me to do it for them. That costs—" He glanced appraisingly at our clothes.

"We can write," Suzanne said.

"Over there on the window ledge the citizeness will find paper and a quill," said the Jacobin youth. He might have been an archangel at the gates of Paradise.

We pushed through to the window ledge. Suzanne quickly filled out a form. Names? Citizeness Suzanne Clary and Citizeness Bernardine Eugénie Désirée Clary. Purpose of visit? We stared at each other in perplexity.

"Write the truth," I said. Then he won't see us," Suzanne whispered.

"He'll make inquiries anyhow before he sees us," I urged. Things are not exactly simple here."

"Simple, no, indeed!" Suzanne moaned as she wrote, "Purpose of visit: Concerns arrest of Citizen Etienne Clary."

We then struggled back to our Jacobin archangel. He glanced casually at the paper, barked, "Wait," and disappeared behind the door. He was gone, it seemed to me, for an eternity. But at last he came back and said, "You may wait The Citizen Deputy will receive you. Your name will be called out."

Soon afterward the door was opened, someone gave the archangel instructions, and he shouted, "Citizen Joseph Petit." I saw an old man with a little girl get up from the bench by the wall, and I quickly pushed Suzanne toward the two empty places. "We had better sit down. It'll be hours before it's our turn."

Our situation had improved a great deal. We leaned back against the wall, closed our eyes, and wriggled our toes in our shoes. Soon I began to look about, and I noticed our shoemaker, old Simon. I remembered his son, young Simon with the bowlegs, and how gallantly those bowlegs had marched in that procession eighteen months ago.

At that time, eighteen months ago, I saw the beginning of it all, and I shall never forget it as long as I live. Our country was being attacked on all sides by enemy armies. The other countries would not tolerate our proclamation of the Republic. It was being said that our armies would not be able to hold out much longer against those superior forces. But one morning I was awakened by singing under our windows. I jumped out of bed, and ran onto the balcony, and I saw marching past the
Volontaires
of Marseilles. They were taking three cannon from the fortress with them, because they did no intend to appear empty-handed before the Minister of War in Paris.